The Sweeney remake scrapped

The movie rights to the 1970s series were picked up by executives at Fox Searchlight, with plans to cast the British actor and newcomer Michael Fassbender as the tough detectives played by John Thaw and Dennis Waterman in the TV original.

The project was put on hold amid fears it wasn’t international enough, and now Winstone has confirmed the movie has been cancelled.

He tells Digital Spy, “It’s not happening. It won’t happen. They didn’t have the money in the first place! It’s the same old story. It was really good; I liked the original script. It had that kind of old style feeling to it, but the problem is you’re playing about with people who are saying in one breath they’ve got the money and the next minute, they haven’t. That happens a lot in our game, you know?”